The form of Japanese children's personal narratives is distinctly different from that of English-speaking children. Despite follow-up questions that encouraged them to talk about one personal narrative at length, Japanese children spoke succinctly about collections of experiences rather than elaborating on any one experience. Conversations between mothers in the two cultures were examined in order to account for the way in which cultural narrative style is transmitted to children. Comparison of mothers yielded the following contrasts: (1) Japanese-speaking mothers requested less description from their children than English-speaking mothers; (2) Japanese mothers gave less evaluation and showed more attention than English-speaking mothers; (3) Japanese mothers paid attention more frequently to boys than girls; and (4) at 5 years of age, Japanese children produce 1.22 utterances per turn on average, while English-speaking children produce 2.0 utterances per turn. It is suggested that the production of short narratives in Japan is understood and valued differently from such production in North America. (Author/AB)